On Sun, 9 Jan 2000, aphro wrote: > i believe there is variatns for the 286, but cant imagine there being any > for the 8088 and 8086 there just isn't enough memory to do anything useful > on those machines. i remember my 286 had 4MB of ram, combined with swap > it could do some stuff in linux im sure(never tried) > > minix was probably 386 and higher as well, as i imagine there are too many > restraints on the design on anything less then 386 that make it hard to > program something like an OS for.
When I taught Operating Systems, (ancient history) we used a very early version of minix which did not run in protected mode. It ran on 8088s. On floppies only. Minix was intended to teach, not be a real tool. That is how Andrew Tannenbaum and Linus Torvalds got into their famous argument about OS design: "Linus would have failed my course." or some such remark. I have not done the OS course in many years, and have no idea whether current Minix runs in real mode. --David David Teague, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Debian GNU/Linux Because software support is free, timely, useful, technically accurate, and friendly.